


Cosmos

by h0ldthiscat



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s10e03 Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster, F/M, xf revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-18 01:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5892910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ldthiscat/pseuds/h0ldthiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels good to be out in the field again, to be stumbling through the woods and tripping over her own feet instead of being cooped up in the OR or the lab all day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cosmos

The TV hums from the other room and she lets the surprisingly strong water pressure from the hotel showerhead pound against her skull. It feels good to be out in the field again, to be stumbling through the woods and tripping over her own feet instead of being cooped up in the OR or the lab all day. Mulder had been right, she--

“Scully?” His thrumming baritenor cuts through her thoughts. Over the sound of the water, she hears the bathroom door open.

“What, Mulder?” 

“Seems like your new dog has just as much affinity for getting into trouble as your first one.”

“Oh?” she asks, lathering up a handful of shampoo. 

“The little sucker went traipsing through the mud during our walk.”

Scully hears something metal hit the tile of the bathroom floor. “Don’t bring him in here now!”

“Not him.” Mulder slides back the curtain and she yelps. He’s completely naked and his forearms are covered in mud. “Me!”

“Jesus Mulder, you couldn’t wait five minutes?” she snaps, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“If I let it dry it’ll stick to the hair on my arms and then it’ll be impossible to get off,” he whines, climbing in and pulling the curtain shut behind him. 

“Nevermind that I’m in the middle of shampooing,” she huffs, stepping back so he can get under the spray of water. 

Mulder groans as the warm water hits his body, and then begins to sluice down his arms, splashing muddy water at their feet. Scully allows herself one glimpse at his ass and her eyes travel up his back and down his arms. He’s gained some muscle mass back since his days of holing up in his office for days at a time. He reaches for the bar of soap the hotel has so graciously provided and turns to face her, lathering his arms and the rest of his body.

“Is this how you like your Mulder?” he teases. 

She swats his arm. “My turn,” she mumbles, pointing to her hair. 

They do an awkward one-eighty, not avoiding touch altogether but careful not to get too intimate. As she tilts her head back she says, “Queequeg wasn’t my first dog, you know.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, I had another one before him. In undergrad.”

“You never told me that.”

She shrugs. A big splash of water hits the shower floor as she sweeps the shampoo from her hair. “We weren’t allowed to have pets in the campus-provided housing. And back then the building I lived in didn’t have AC yet.”

“I sense this taking a terrible turn,” Mulder says warily. 

She shakes her head. “Not really. He was big guy though, and apparently got hot one day when my roommate and I were in class, so he started howling. We got found out and he went to go live with my roommate’s parents.”

“At least it’s a happy ending?” They rotate again so Mulder can stand under the water. 

“For him, maybe. We had our dog taken away.” She pouts a little as she squeezes a dollop of body wash onto her loofa. 

“That smells good, is that new?” Mulder asks, looking over his shoulder. 

“What do you care?” she teases, feeling bold. 

“I don’t, I was merely asking as a platonic adult friend who happens to be in the shower with you.”

Scully sighs, straightens her back. “Yes, it is new.”

“Well it’s very nice,” Mulder says, miming a bow. 

They are silent as she soaps up, sidestepping a muddy puddle that’s somehow made its way to the back of the shower. 

“What was his name?” Mulder asks quietly.

“Who?”

“Your dog. In college. Don’t say Ishmael.”

She smiles. “It was Sagan.”

“ _Sagan_?” Mulder’s jaw drops open. “As in Carl Sagan, the father of astronomy?”

“Now you know why I never told you,” she says, her voice rising over his teasing. 

“Why, because you knew it would be an incredible turn on?”

She feels her face flush red. “Mulder.”

“I’m just saying, I like a lady who knows her stuff.”

“I know you do.”

They are facing each other, the shower spray wasting away behind Scully as she steps closer to him. 

“You were right, you know,” she says quietly.

“About what?”

“I really enjoyed myself these last couple days.”

“Really?”

“Mmhmm.” She hums in her throat as he places a hand on her hip. She reaches up to cup his face, scratchy with the tiniest bit of stubble, when a sharp bark from the other room makes them both jump. 

“Sounds like your little harpooner’s up to no good again,” Mulder says, his voice rough. 

“You didn’t crate him when you got back from the walk?”

“I know you don’t like crates, I didn’t want to--”

“Are you telling me my muddy dog’s been doing god knows what out there for the last fifteen minutes?” she asks, her voice rising. 

“Actually, god’s probably very familiar with the typical canine--”

“Save it, Mulder.” She turns off the water and yanks open the curtain. “When I can’t get the security deposit back on this room I know exactly who I’ll send the bill to, hm?”

She grabs a towel from off the rack above the toilet and pads out into the main room to assess the damage, and even as she stares in annoyance and disbelief at the muddy pawprints all over the bed, she can’t help but grin.


End file.
